


Silver In Her Bones

by ursa_maritima



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-07 04:46:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17359238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursa_maritima/pseuds/ursa_maritima
Summary: Everyone knows Vex'ahlia loves to fly.  Everyone knows she's a half-elf.  Everyone knows she's half-human because her mother was Elaina.  Everyone knows you're always your own worst enemy.Everyone is not always right.





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> two preludes to a larger story, exploring Vex's love of flight and where that might come from.

Elaina stood in the doorway, a soft smile on her face as she watched the branches of the tree bend and waver, tiny flashes of Vax’ildan’s green coat and Vex’ahlia’s blue trousers appearing and disappearing amidst the bright autumn leaves as they raced up ever higher. They settled eventually, stymied by the too-thin branches of the crown- soft pats of sound followed as Vax lobbed acorn after acorn at the old owl-roost in a neighboring tree. Vex was uncharacteristically still, however, and Elaina took a few steps to the side in order to better see her. She was sprawled precariously at the highest point physically possible, thin branches bending even under her scant weight, staring up at the clouds with an intensity and focus uncommon in most six year olds. Elaina feels her heart lurch a beat at that- she knows that yearning, that unerring draw to the heights. It makes her call them in early, wanting to hold them close, needing them nearby.  
“Mama, if I eat frogs and worms and fish and bugs like the river-birds do, will I grow wings so I can fly?”  
“You don’t need to eat like the birds to find your wings. You’ll feel them, here-” Elaina touched two gentle fingers to the center of Vex’ahlia’s chest. “-deep in your bones. Even if you never see them, they’ll be there. You’ll fly someday, darling.”

\---

Vex burns, sometimes, with this yearning for flight. Not like fire, but like the way her arms burn after a long fight, or the way her cheeks feel after walking on wind-scoured paths in the snow for hours. Sometimes it's a sourness that sinks deep to her bones, makes them ache with a strange kind of hum that rises to meet her heartbeat. On those days it’s hard to keep still, and if she’s not paying attention to where her legs carry her, she’ll find herself halfway up a tree, or leaning precariously close to the edge of a balcony. The flying carpet helps, on days like that. She can soar up until she can see just...everything. It’s enough, on the worst days, but coming back to the ground always aches. 

When she takes that potion of flight, it’s like that first deep breath of air after being underwater, like the feeling of sunshine soaking into skin after the long dark, and despite the intensity of the fight with the Briarwoods she can’t suppress the lightness, the joy that bubbles within.

Stealing the broom from Gern happens almost without conscious effort; her fingers lock tightly around the smooth wood with a possessive intensity that can’t be reasoned with. It’s wrong, she knows that- but that siren call is too much to bear. Any lingering guilt turns to ash and dust the first time she soars high into the air, tilting her face into the thinning air, cheeks flushed and eyes watering, pure clean righteous joy flooding through her veins. It’s even better than the carpet- she has to be an active participant in this kind of flight; her muscles ache but with a good kind of burn, the ache of new skill, practiced motion. Still…the more she flies, the longer she flies, the more intricate things she’s able to do while she flies...the more that feeling of unease creeps in. It’s _nearly_ enough. But it isn’t.


	2. Paresthesia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mid-Thordak battle, so some descriptions of injuries and violence in this chapter.

Vex watches from the half-collapsed rooftop she’d fallen onto after Thordak swatted her out of the sky, her broom lying cracked and long out of reach on the rubble-strewn ground. She's not sure where everyone is; she’d lost sight of Percy almost immediately, Keyleth’s water elemental form was surprisingly hard to see amongst the smoke and ash, the twin golden shining points that were Pike and Kima had long since been covered in soot. She's a little concerned, though, because she isn't that concerned she can't see them. Maybe she’d been higher than she thought- her vision was a little blurry, soft focused, but she didn't seem to hurt, really.   
Not generally a good sign.   
All she really feels is that ache, that cold familiar sour kind of chill that seems to reach down into her bones, pulsing alongside the thrum of her blood.   
A familiar roaring bellow distracts her away from the weird buzzing in her teeth and she sees Grog lifted into the air with one swipe of a red claw, watches as he collides with a dark blip in the air, landing with in a cloud of black feathers.   
He doesn't move.   
Neither of them move.   
Two heartbeats.   
Three.   
Four.   
She hasn't heard the sharp retort of Percival's guns since before she fell, the golden sword of Pike’s magical weapon has faded from view, and she can't remember the last time she saw the purple sparks of Scanlan’s magic. Thordak is out of her range, even if she could stand, which she's not sure she can- that deep sour feeling has gotten colder and she feels like she’s been buried in ice. She wants to be angry, needs that white-hot rage that's sustained her through these years of hunting dragons, needs to get up, needs to shove a _stupid_ healing potion into her _stupid_ brother, needs to know that her family is alive, but for all those things she needs to fly, _she should be able to fly_ , she's stuck, tethered, bound-   
She screams with the need of it, her voice tearing out of her throat in a wordless, echoing roar that burns and tastes of blood; she can no longer feel her legs. If this is the way she ends, trapped and _ignored_ on a rooftop as Thordak slaughters her family, then let this dying wish serve as her curse. She will kill him, tear open his throat, carve the flesh from his bones; rip his wings and bury him beneath the seas to rot and be eaten by the crabs, she will-

_burn_

She's never felt this cold before, not even fighting Vorugal. It burns in her bones, through her veins, in her lungs, shattering up against her skin to crack and curl around her fingers. It’s a wave driven by her heartbeat, a swelling tide of ice that roars inside, echoing a furious chorus of flight-soar- _fight-lift-fly_ that builds and builds and fills until she’s drowning. Death has never felt like this. Death is empty, echoing silence and this is a deafening cacophony filling her up, her legs straining to right herself, her-  
She can feel her legs again.   
She feels stronger than she ever has.

Her eyes are clear enough to see Thordak lunging forward at a tiny speck of purple holding a fading shield over a tumble of long limbs and firey hair, her ears are sharp enough to pick out Gilmore’s hoarse desperate shouting- and then she sees a crossbow bolt go skidding across Thordak’s shoulder, opening a shallow groove. Thordak roars, rearing back, and the wound bleeds. Vex feels it like the first time she’d stalked something she couldn't kill in one shot; Thordak is weakening. He’s vulnerable.

He's _hers._  
She answers his last roar of pain with a taunting, challenging bellow, heaves herself to her feet, takes three steps to the edge of the roof, leaps-

falls-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> paresthesia is when your foot falls asleep, essentially, though it's used in any circumstance where there's no discernible reason for the pins-and-needles sensations.


	3. Headlong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still mid-Thordak fight, so the same descriptions of violence applies from previous chapter.

Vax isn't dead. Getting there, sure. He’d used the last of his lay on hands on Grog, so now Grog was back to breathing, too- but he was still collapsed over the top of Vax, which meant that Vax’s breathing was rapidly becoming an issue. He can't move, can’t see but a swath of the cloudy, ash-streaked sky and the occasional flash of red as Thordak rears back. He ’s not flying anymore, though- Vax may not have Vex’s years of detailed study, but he’s pretty sure Thorn-ass is too wounded to fly. Kiki and Shaun had still been up when he’d gone down with Grog; Percival’s gun had been worryingly quiet, he’d lost Scanlan at some point, but his ears were still ringing with the power of Shorthalt’s last inspirational song, so he was probably still alive. If he could just get Grog to move enough to get Whisper free-!

Vax heaves, strains, feels something give deep within his shoulder with a searing tear, but his fingers close around Whisper’s hilt and he begins tugging it free- only to see Thordak rear up before them, jaws unhinged like a snake, that white-hot glow beginning to pulse in time with the stone. He’s not going to get Whisper free; he has to believe Vex’ahlia is on her rooftop readying her strike because this is their mother’s death staring him down and there’s fuck-all he can do about it.   
Grog shifts above him, not enough to free Whisper, but enough to block Vax’s vision of fire and death. 

“You gotta get him, gotta fuck ‘im up,” Grog mutters indistinctly into Vax’s ear. He’s starfished over Vax, trying to block him from the fire about to wash over them, and Vax doesn't have the heart to point out at no amount of sacrifice is going to protect them from the molten flame. The air heats around them, Grog roaring defiance- Vax can see the flame cracking the tiles just past his shoulder, the shimmer in the air refracting a purple sheen. Purple- Vax cranes his head around and it’s Shaun, of course; singed, his hair scorched, robes smeared with soot and blood, one arm curled around supporting a dazed Keyleth against his shoulder, the other cradling a small crystal in his palm. Shaun’s focus is entirely trained on the crystal, which shatters into dust just moments after the fire fades, the shimmering shield shattering with it. Shaun sags heavily against Grog as the dust runs from his fingers.

_“Move_ , Grog!” Vax wheezes, shoving one ridiculous bicep away from his face and reaching once again for the daggers at his belt. The Keen dagger meets his fingers first, and he flings it up and away almost without looking; Whisper he draws next, but when he tries to throw it he finds he can't move that arm right, and it takes precious time to transfer it to his other hand, taking aim, throwing- Vax groans, it’s going wide, it won't strike hard enough. Last stand for nothing; please, let his family get through, get out, regroup. 

He feels that little pull that follows Whisper finding its mark, and passes into shadow, through shade, letting the sensation of his fingers around the familiar wrapped hilt pull him back out into reality. Dangling by one hand around Whisper stuck fast in the muscle just below Thordak’s wing, his attention momentarily entirely focused on finding toe-holds and pulling another dagger out to secure his position, he thinks he can be forgiven for being unable to process what he’s seeing. At first it seems like the battle’s somehow bent time, gone late enough into night that moonlight is shining down in liquid stripes of silver- but it’s a thin, waning moon, not full enough to shine so brightly, so even if they’d been fighting for far longer, there’d be no silver- but there it is. A wide band of silver, shining almost lightning-bright, snakes across the blood red scales at Thordak’s throat; thin curls like talons biting deeply into the flesh just above where Whisper rests. It’s not until the steaming, blackened blood trails down from the edges of the silver to join the dripping from under his fingers that he’s able to resolve the images in front of him. It’s not moonlight. 

It’s a dragon- half the size of the gargantuan Thordak, perched on his back like a small, furious cat trying to take down a warhorse. There’s a tail whipping and whirling, digging little strips of flesh out of Thordak’s rear legs and wings, long wicked talons of one foot sunk deep into Thordak’s shoulder, the other raking deep furrows down the length of Thordak’s neck. There’s a noise like a terrible bell shaking his bones, making it hard to hold on to Whisper- Thordak, bellowing in shocked rage. Vax turns his head slowly, watching as a silver crest curls into view behind Thordak- there’s a wide, frilled ridge, an almost scintillating iridescence that seems to radiate light, that snakes between two wickedly pointed horns and down its back. There’s an intelligence behind the bright glowing eye, but it’s hidden behind a cold, burning rage as the jaw gapes open and strikes, sinking teeth into the stone embedded in Thordak’s chest. Steam billows out, alternating waves of searing heat and burning cold creating a sudden cloud of fog. He can’t see, but he feels the hot scales beneath him shiver in a way that means fear in Vax’s experience. He shifts his grip to free Whisper, straining to grasp one of the silver-bright clawed fingers as a better handhold- it’s not as cold as he was expecting, but it’s still a startling contrast between the painful radiant heat of Thordak’s skin. From this higher vantage he can see the groove that follows the path of one of the big veins in Thordak’s neck.   
“Hey, Sore-dick,” he yells, words lost almost immediately in the roaring. “This is for my mother!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I nearly named this chapter from a different lyric from the most excellent Queen song Headlong (When a red-hot man meets a white-hot lady) but I didn't want Vex to murder me.
> 
> Still, it's a very Vax-y song.
> 
> (the things Vax calls Thordak all came out of typos from either voice-to-text or swype, but i thought they were both hilarious and true to Vax's character, so i left them in.)


End file.
